GDSs in Europe are “ripe for reform,” Ludolf Van Hasselt, head of the economic regulations unit of the EC's transport directorate, told a conference in Brussels.
But he said that any changes in rules must have consumers “first and foremost in our mind.”
The conference was organised by the US-based Business Travel Coalition (BTC) and co-sponsored by the recently-formed Coalition for Fair Access to Reservations in Europe (C-FARE).
MEPs, executives from the EC, airlines and travel management companies, travel associations and travel managers attended the event.
Kevin Mitchell, chairman of BTC, said airlines getting rid of their stake in GDSs had been a pre-requisite of de-regulation of GDSs in the United States.
In Europe three airlines, Air France, Iberia and Lufthansa still have a stake in one of the major GDSs, Amadeus.
Brandon Mitchener, executive director of C-FARE, said the most important guarantee is a basic requirement that all airlines with an ownership stake in a CRS make fare and routing information available in a fair and non-discriminatory way.
“This simple rule protects travel agents, corporate travel managers and leisure travellers alike from abuse,” he said.
David Schwarte, general counsel for Sabre Holdings, also a leading CRS and member of C-FARE, said not having access to the price and routing information of the main airlines in Europe would be like “operating an automatic teller machine in Brussels that can't dispense euros.”
But some attendees, including BA and ECTAA, representing European leisure travel agents, called for better regulations, not total de-regulation to stop the alleged abuses which took place and which caused regulation in the first place.
Any de-regulation of GDSs in Europe is not likely to take place until 2006 and then probably only with safeguards to stop airlines with a stake in a GDS obtaining unfair advantage over rival carriers.